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tv   The Lead With Jake Tapper  CNN  April 4, 2013 1:00pm-2:00pm PDT

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ebert again. she was there by his side through and through and it's just sad to hear, you know, we all hope that he would just go the distance and would live a much longer life but according to the "chicago sun-times" they are reporting that roger ebert has died. a.j., we look forward to your report. thank you very much. we'll send it off to "the lead" and jake tapper. >> movie fortunes rose and fell with the flick of his thumb. i'm jake tapper and this is "the lead." our top lead, for decades he helped us separate the must see from the must miss. now in the last few moments we've learned that film critic roger ebert has died at the age of 70. the world lead, north korea is speeding up the chess game and could put a weapon in the air soon. now while u.s. owe ffficiaoffic they'll dial down their own fighting words we wonder how real is the danger? the national lead it could become a new status symbol for status updates.
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facebook wants you checking facebook on a phone screen designed by facebook. we begin with our world lead at this hour. all eyes are on the east coast of north korea where u.s. officials believe the communist nation may be preparing to launch a missile. the target? who knows? it could be a test to show force. the most alarming part according to a senior administration official i spoke with this afternoon is not necessarily the provocative behavior. north korea has been conducting nuclear tests and talking tough since kim jong un's father kim jong-il was in charge. what's concerning this official told me is the accelerated clip of the actions. a nuclear test, rhetoric, now a missile launch all in a matter of weeks instead of years. few believe north korea has the range to hit mainland u.s. but there are bases in north korea and south korea and guam with
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the combined total of 90,000 u.s. troops all over the map. a bit like the u.s. response to these now daily threats. just yesterday secretary of defense chuck hagel called north korea a clear and present danger yet today officials at the pentagon and state department say they want to turn down the volume of their own rhetoric against the north. >> it was the ratcheting up of tensions on the dprk side that caused us to need to shore up our own defense posture. we have done that. but we have also been saying all the way through that this does not need to get hotter. we can change course here. >> in just a moment we'll talk to the former u.s. ambassador to the united nations bill richardson who has visited north korea a number of times. first i want to bring in tom foreman to explain how this could escalate. please explain to us. >> jake, all eyes today are on
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the map of north korea right now particularly looking along this eastern coast over here where military intelligence says, you see the red part there, about a 250-mile stretch where somewhere a missile has been moved into position for launch. that's what we're hearing from intelligence. we don't know where but we hopefully would think they do. this is a fairly big area. we're talking about a missile model that is very bare bones. this is called the musadon and is believed to have evolved from a missile used by russian submarines so you can see how the profile would fit well for a submarine launch. there is also a variety of this that is used in iran called the shahhad missile. it is generally pretty reliable. let me get rid of the model and bring in the stats. this thing can be of some considerable length if you think about it somewhere between 40 and 60 feet long. it can carry a pay load 2.5
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tons. that matters because that is a substantial amount of explosive power being carried. the pay load in a missile is a bomb actually. you either have a nuclear warhead, which is probably unlikely just given the state of the north korean nuclear program. that would not be very reliable. or h.e. that stands for high explosive. a high explosive warhead, jake. if you have a missile like we just talked about carrying a high explosive of two tons or something like that, that is an awful lot of walloping in the air. >> how far can the missiles go? >> that is a really great question. it depends on the variety of the missile we're talking about. i want to bring in some stats as well. if you look at a map and say this is a two stage missile they can be one stage because as i mentioned there are many variations. if it is a two stage and they get both to fire they can go up to about 2500 miles. on the map, well, hawaii, alaska, california. they're off here. they would not reach it with this. it is called an intermediate
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missile but places like guam would be in the target zone. so would japan. so would south korea. there are tens of thousands of u.s. troops and assets in those areas. >> tom foreman, thank you. only a handful of americans have ever set foot inside north korea. former governor bill richardson is one of them. he's been there several times and now joins me. thanks for joining us. as we just mentioned the north koreans have moved missile components to their east coast likely for a test launch that could pass over japan. how are president obama and the administration trying to cool down this situation right now? >> well, they're doing i believe a good job. first dialing down some of the military maneuvers, the rhetoric and response to the north korean very angry rhetoric. but the reality is, jake, that the north koreans have really not done anything. they had those missile launchers before the underground tests but despite the ratcheting up and the threats and the activity,
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they really haven't done much. if they shoot this missile it's very serious. another sign is the industrial park in kasong. this is on the border with south korea. i noticed the north koreans are not letting the 4,000 south koreans that work there come in but the 54,000 north koreans that work there apparently is still going on. they need that for their foreign currency. so the big problem, though, jake, is the intention of kim jong un. i was just there in january with eric schmidt of google. he wouldn't see us. he saw dennis rodman instead. so i'm thinking of becoming a basketball player. but the point is that we know very little about this guy. we think somebody in the military in the party that is not pro engagement that wants hostile possibilities to south korea and the united states may be pulling his strings.
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>> in 2010, the north koreans attacked the south korean island that killed four south koreans and in the same year also attacked the south korean naval vessel killing 46 south koreans. there was no military response by south korea or by the u.s. do you think in any way that was a mistake that that conveyed weakness to the north koreans? >> well, jake, there was some south korean response at the time. it wasn't as intense as the north koreans and i remember being there in north korea right after that happened, and those in my party urged the north koreans to cool it. not to do anything. no, i don't think it was a mistake. i think this is the kind of incident, some kind of naval mishap altercation on the yellow sea that could provoke a trip wire effect that would get south korea involved intensively with north korea and then because of our treaty relationship with south korea we have to get involved, too. that's the danger.
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a miscalculation, a misjudgment caused by all this rhetoric, all this hot air, all of this military activity, so i think the next step has to be, hopefully, there is an end game here and that end game is diplomacy and pressure. pressure by the chinese that it really not leaned on the north koreas. they have leverage over them but they haven't done so. i think eventually, jake, the six-party countries -- russia, china, south korea, japan, the united states. we have to have some kind of diplomatic effort to gauge where this guy, this new guy in north korea are going. you don't want this tinder box there every day with a new ratcheting as has been happening. >> all right. governor bill richardson, thank you so much. we appreciate your time. we'll talk to you again soon. a programming note. wolf blitzer will have more on the north korean crisis on the situation room at 5:00 eastern. breaking news in the pop
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culture lead. it was only yesterday that roger ebert announced he was taking what he called a leave of presence because his cancer had returned. today in fact just a few moments ago his long-time newspaper the "chicago sun-times" reported that roger ebert has died at the age of 70. the critic so many of us joined at the movies over the years was originally diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002. a year later ebert found out he had a tumor in his salivary gland. the pulitzer prize winner lost his job and the disease also robbed him of his physical voice but he continued to review movies on the web right up until his last moments roger ebert was a lovely writer with an almost religious belief in film and a unique ability to turn a phrase. he could be whimsical, angry, but always a must read. i'm joined by tom o'neill film critic for gold derby.com and on the phone is the foreign critic for "new york" magazine. david, i'll start with you. what is the legacy of roger
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ebert? >> well, i think roger was kind of the mayor of movie criticville by which i mean we're all such twisted loners and roger conceived of himself once he stopped drinking and stopped going to the playboy mansion as a kind of public figure. he really was very close to a politician insofar as he took his public role very seriously. he could, on his television show, he could command the attention of large numbers of people the way no film critic had ever done before. he had a marvelous gift for speaking in whole paragraphs. i'm sure you know the difficulty of beginning a paragraph extemporaneously and just knowing with his topic sentence what his conclusion would be in a way that not only drew you into what -- to understand what the movie was about but was able at the same time to communicate his passion. he was able to make people believe not just in movies but in the power of criticism to
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illuminate movies and he took that into a form, television, in which it had never been successful. i would argue it has never been done as well as deit. >> tom, same question for you. what is mr. ebert's legacy? >> well, let's also remember that he is the first film critic ever to win the pulitzer prize. and he is of course the first film critic with his cohort gene siskal to become a public personality on television, somebody we would recognize. along the way in his career he did little off beat things that minimum wage a huge difference in film history. for example, when he was at the cannes film festival many years ago he found this little movie called "chariots of fire." he rallied the critics in the south of france together and created an award out of nothing and called it the american critics award. put that movie on the map and of course it went all the way to win best picture at the academy awards.
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>> thank you so much. we will miss roger ebert and hope to have you back under happier circumstances. hillary clinton says she has not made her mind up about 2016 but that hasn't stopped her friends from jumping on the band w wagon. our political lead is next. our pop lead, i'm no don draper but for a few minutes i got to pretend i was. don't worry. just a hard working ad executive side. my visit to the set of "mad men" as well as my interview with the man behind it. man behind it. that's coming up. ry, need a tow or lock your keys in the car, geico's emergency roadside assistance is there 24/7. oh dear, i got a flat tire. hmmm. uh... yeah, can you find a take where it's a bit more dramatic on that last line, yeah? yeah i got it right here. someone help me!!! i have a flat tire!!! well it's good... good for me. what do you think? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. only hertz gives you a carfirmation.
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the politics lead these days almost a prewek wisconsin it re president you have to write a book first. hillary clinton is releasing a new one next year supposedly all about foreign policy. her time in foggy bottom. while it does not yet have a title a lot of people think it might as well be called hey i'm running in 2016.
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guys, this thing comes out june, 2014, when it is due. so the book tour, july, august, september right up to the mid terms and then after the mid terms decisions will be made. coincidence? >> no. look, she has really been an incredible public servant. had a front row seat. the capture of bin laden. the arab spring. there is no question this is going to be a best seller and of course she has time still to plot out a presidential campaign if she chooses to run. >> it is impeccable timing is it not? >> it is. she'll cash in majorly and make a fortune on a this book. she got $8 million on the last one. it is also consistent with someone going to the private sect and maximizing their buying power but also consistent with her keeping her options open. doesn't mean she has to run but if she does it will be very convenient. if the book is interesting and
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candid, we know she is not running. if it's safe and bland then you know she is in. >> a chapter ross called what really happened at benghazi. >> it lays down a marker for say other democratic politicians who might be considering a run basically saying, well, you know, as long as i'm thinking about running you probably want to think about 2020 and 2024. i mean, i think for hillary it is sort of the question of what does american politics look like in 2014, right? i think that the last thing she would want to do is for some reason end up going out a loser. if there seems to be any chance of her ending up in a situation like john mccain ended up in 2008 where, you know, if mccain had been running for president in 2004 he would have won 54% of the vote. he was one of the most popular politicians in america. but he was running to extend an unpopular legacy and he lost. if obama looked really unpopular in 2014 you can imagine hillary
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saying, well i don't want to go down as the woman who lost to chris christie by three points. >> there is a self-hating moment i'll take right now which is any time we have this conversation i feel a little guilty because we are fulfilling what everybody hates about the press and pundits. >> it is a slow news week. >> nothing going on anywhere else in the world. one thing that is interesting is we're not making it up. james carville is going to help fund raise for the hillary super pac. this is a real thing. they are putting everything in motion. you're active in democratic circles. you must know a lot of people just waiting for the phone call. >> people are already talking to one another. james carville has an incredible following. he put out this statement. if you have a fast car but no fuel where are you going? his job right now is to raise
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money. of course it is 1,313 days away. >> you just pulled that number out of the air. >> but, clearly, if she decides to run she would be not only the front-runner but the person to beat. not just among the democrats who might consider running but also the republicans. >> obviously vice president biden is watching this very closely. he'll probably run no matter what. who will be -- will sit by the sidelines if she runs? >> biden is the big question. governor o'malley of maryland. andrew cuomo i think is someone who would very much like to do it, it seems, if she is not in. with these other people in the picture that goes to the point why it is important to talk about it at an early stage. hillary can start raising a lot of money and demonstrate she has this money and if you try to step in you'll get blown away. she has to have a show of force early to keep people out.
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it frees up donors and intimidates other potential rivals. i think that is likely to be her game plan if she wants to run. you have to start doing that soon. >> the reason we're talking about it soon is because she is an unusual figure. i mentioned mccain before but mccain in 2004 had the problem that a large chunk of the republican base didn't like him. everyone understood he would have to get over that hump to win in '08 whereas hillary, i mean, what happened to her in the last cycle means that she sort of has a seeming lock on the kind of remaining white, working class part of the democratic party and the clintons and the african-american community have been -- fences have been mended. >> she also does well with latinos as well. >> thank you for indulging my horse race fix. i appreciate it. thank you for being here. hash tag you're it. we want to hear from you. what would you call hillary clinton's new book? hit us up on twitter at the lead cnn with the hash tag hillary
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book titles. normally a camera in a locker room would result in an arrest or lawsuit but now the nfl is making teams install them so you can watch. what is the catch? our sports lead is next. marjorie, i can't stand you. even the inside of your dishwasher sparkles. whoa! kitchen counselor. see, new cascade platinum is unlike finish gel. it not only cleans your dishes, it helps keep your dishwasher sparkling. [ female announcer ] new cascade platinum.
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in the sports lead the kevin ware injury made us all take a hard look at the multi billion dollar ncaa machine and the free labor provided by student athletes. today there are big time allegations against one of the most storied college football programs in the country. a report from former "sports illustrated" columnist selena roberts quotes former students at auburn who say under coach
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gene chisick the school paid some players to stay and changed grades for some. leading into the 2011 bcs national championship game some of the players that were quoted are now taking to twitter to say they were misquoted. this has the potential for all kinds of unfortunate photo bombs. reports say the nfl will now require teams to install locker room cams to be shown on stadium scoreboards during games next season the latest attempt to keep fans in the seat instead of back home on their couches where they can watch several games at once in hd, crack all their fantasy teams and not pay 50 bucks for parking. let's hope we don't have any towel malfunctions in front of 85,000 fans. it's been a long ten months since we last left don draper alone or not alone in a smokey bar. in three days we'll find out what happened but in only three minutes you will get your mad men fix. my interview with the creator of the hit amc series is our pop lead and that's next.
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this is "the lead" and i'm jake tapper. the pop culture lead. you don't have to wait until sunday to return to the offices of sterling cooper and draper price the creator of "mad men" invited us on to the set to preview the hotly anticipated new season. in other national news better transparency or just tmi? the usda wants labels to tell you where your meat was raised and slaughtered whether you want to know or not. and the buried lead. no human has ever contracted a known case of it until now. a deadly virus overseas and nobody knows how the infection is spreading. welcome back to "the lead." you may have noticed i'm not sitting at my anchor desk but actually at the desk of don draper ad man extraordinaire and the main character in the hit
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amc tv show "mad men." millions of fans have been eagerly awaiting the premiere of the sixth and second to last season of the tv show. we were given a rare opportunity to visit the set and talk to the creator and some of the actors and, well, we filed this report. >> are you alone? >> reporter: it's been a long ten months since we left don draper at the bar. for this sunday millions will return to the offices of sterling, cooper, draper, price for the season 6 premiere of "mad men" on amc. the series creator matthew weiner invited us to come early. >> we're sitting in don draper's office and it is unbelievably detailed. the whole set is incredible. >> we've tried. >> you two are actually working. >> reporter: more than tried the team behind "mad men" meticulously researches every vintage detail of don draper's environment. it can get a little crazy. >> actually have a job sheet? >> yeah. >> you actually -- why is this
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necessary? >> for me, it goes back to the idea of the empty suitcases. like growing up and watching people on tv and movies, actors pick up suitcases to leave and seeing they were empty. i always thought like the actors can tell they're empty and they know they're not going anywhere and maybe because i'm not an actor and i don't know how they use their imagination to create three dimensional space i wanted the set to be detailed always. >> reporter: the details matter. >> takes us to a place where we ache to go again. >> reporter: since it premiered in 2007 "mad men" has received 15 emmy awards and four golden globes and changed the game for amc paving the way for the high brow scripted series now taking over cable tv. >> i feel very lucky to be working in television right now. there is none of it without "the sopranos" that really was both the creative and the business model. and in fact amc was very
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consciously trying to recreate that business model when they bought "mad men." you know, it felt like an hbo show to everyone but hbo actually. >> do you -- has hbo ever expressed regret for passing on the show? >> yes, yes they did. >> reporter: what a story they've missed. heavy drinking. heavy petting. heavy drama have kept viewers tuned in to a bygone era of boys clubs. last season we saw real changes with the women characters. >> yeah. >> joan prostituted herself. >> yes. i don't know if it was anymore prostituting herself than pete telling american airlines his father had died on that plane. you know, i don't want to take away at all what joan did. it is a tough thing to do and a story based on reality. >> okay, girls. come on in. >> reporter: how worried or concerned or aware are you when you're writing for your women
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characters about them not just being joan and megan and peggy but them being symbolic of women in general? >> that is a really good question. i don't want the characters to ever be symbolic in general. did women have it harder? yes. were there women pioneers? yes. were there exceptions to every rule? yes. how did someone succeed in that world? i think the show resonates because things are not that different. i don't want to give a history lesson. i want people to know that these people could be their mothers. >> but the dark heart of "mad men" is mysterious, womanizing ad man don draper. the last line from the last season is, are you alone? >> yeah. >> is he alone? is don draper alone? is this what the show is about? >> i think it's a big part of his life, yeah. and the ambiguity of that statement after we've seen this
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man having found love and seeming less alone. i think, you know, there is an existential quality to him as a hero thnchs is going to be the second to the last season. >> yes. >> why? >> no one asks me that. >> i'm enjoying it? it's going well? there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to end it any time soon. >> i feel like, you know, first of all it's exhausting. i need a break. but the reality of it is that the show has a life span. it is mortal. you really want to end it before you have exceeded the ability to tell the story. >> weiner has thought a lot about endings including the finale of "the sopranos." a show he used to write for in which viewers were kept in the dark literally as to whether the
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family got whacked. >> to me it was so provocative and such a great model of how to deal with entertainment. >> please tell me you're not going to end "mad men" the way "the sopranos" ended. >> if i had thought of it i would but it has been done so i will not. >> i don't need to know how don draper dies but if the show is about this existential question, am i alone, can i be happy, there needs to be a hint at the end. >> i am going to try to use the machinery of my show to give a satisfying ending. >> okay. >> i promise. >> i've just devoted a lot of time to this. >> the idea that people wouldn't like it would bother me. >> okay. >> if people had their way the first season joan and peggy would be living together. joan would have given peggy a makeover. they'd be best friends and you'd be bored. leave them wanting more. ♪ come on let's twist again >> this sunday the "mad men" premiere is two hours long.
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weiner calls it a movie to wet the fans' appetites. >> there is a sense that someone like don and seeing the world through don's eyes who is now 40 is going to become out of touch and is really the story for all of the characters all sort of moving toward some kind of hopefully reconciliation with who they are. but there is quite a fire to watch. >> i can't wait. >> does that sound juicy? >> of course we can't talk about the new season of "mad men" without mentioning the worst kept secret in town including a season in hawaii. let the speculation begin. there was not enough for facebook to take over your life. now it wants to take over your phone. literally. mark zuckerberg reveals facebook home. what is it? our national lead is next. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. we've shared what we've learned,
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our national lead. break out the hoody. mark esberg is back. the facebook founder and billionaire, remember ladies he is married, presented his company's latest product and all its power point glory. is it a phone? no, not really. it's an operating system, a feature for android phones. basically your friends on facebook will bombard your home screen with their vacation photos starting on april 12th. it's called home and mark zuckerberg thinks it will change your life. >> i think this can start to be a change in the relationship we have in how we use these computing devices. >> for the 650 million people who use facebook on their phones is this a game changer?
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what about those who like to use their phone for something other than facebook? joining me now is the reporter who covered the event for "slate.com" as their technology columnist. explain this to me. what is this? do i really need it? >> yes. so it's not a phone. people for years have been waiting for a facebook phone. this is basically a new home screen for your android phone and it's a home screen that makes facebook kind of front and center on your phone. so you'll turn on your phone after you install this and the first thing you'll see are vacation photos from your friends on facebook or status updates. basically you'll see facebook. so you need it. if you are a huge fan of facebook and if that's the thing you use your android phone for more than anything else and you've always wished for an easier way to get to facebook then you'll love this. if you use your phone for other things, occasionally finding yourself doing things like
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e-mail or phoning people then this might not be for you. >> it doesn't sound like something i am going to run me personally and download. are you going to download it and use it? >> i think i'll download it to try it out. i think that there are probably tens or maybe hundreds of millions of people who are that way. facebook is a hugely popular mobile app. as you said, there are 650 million people who use it. and for a lot of people it's the main thing they do on their phone. according to facebook their engagement numbers are off the charts. people spend hours on it. every month. and that's more than anything else they do on their phones. for some subset of people, maybe younger people, maybe people who, you know, don't use their phone for work that much, this could be, you know, the great thing for them.
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>> thank you so much. we appreciate it. >> thanks. last night at a no cameras allowed democratic fundraiser in san francisco president obama misstated the kind of weapon used in the sandy hook shooting advocating for stricter gun control the president said, quote, it is possible for us to create common sense gun safety measures that respect the traditions of gun ownership in this country and hunters and sportsmen but also make sure we don't have another 20 children in a classroom gunned down by a semiautomatic weapon -- by a fully automatic weapon in that case, sadly. that is not correct. it was a semiautomatic weapon not a fully automatic weapon. most fully automatic weapons, machine guns, are essentially banned to the public. when asked for an explanation the white house said the president misspoke. this is not the first time a leading advocate for gun control has stumbled on the facts. here is new york city mayor bloomberg on abc's "nightline" just after the sandy hook tragedy. >> but that would ban most pistols. >> pistols are different.
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you have to pull the trigger each time. an assault weapon you basically hold. >> no, those are fully automatic weapons. >> okay. >> the gun debate is worth having and we'll have that conversation on the sheen have had it and will continue to. it might help the advocates of gun control if in their advocacy for stricter measures they seemed more familiar with what exactly they're trying to ban. washington continues to wrestle with the question of what to do about gun violence that the governor of connecticut just put pen to paper signing a sweeping new bill into law today. it outlaws more than 100 types of guns and prohibits the sale or purchase of high capacity magazines like those used in the newtown shooting. it also bans armor piercing bullets. advocates call the bill historic. critics say it only infringes on the rights of people who already obey the law. your friends get away with it on facebook but once your ground beef starts oversharing, it might be time to draw the line. the usda is criticized by some
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groups for approving a move to put new labels on meat sold in the u.s. the labels include information on where an animal was born, where it was raised, where it was slaughtered. the lead's erin mcpike is here to explain the point of all this and why some groups are against it. too much information maybe. no? why do people want to do this? >> maybe. but it's all over a trade battle that's been going on for the past couple years. some of our neighbors -- canada and mexico -- have been accusing the united states of protectionism for the last few years but it's all over just a few words of fine print that you may never pay attention to anyway. how carefully do you read the label on that package of ground round or pork chops when you grab it at a grocery store? >> i'm not getting this. >> reporter: if a new regulation goes through soon you'll be able to tell where the cow was raised and slaughtered.
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>> i don't think it really matters. we don't know what was happening in australia or new zealand or how it was killed in the u.s. we just know it's here on the shelf, ready to go. >> the new labels are the product of a battle between american farmers and the larger meat industry. before this new rule, meat raised in, say, mexico could be labeled as a product of the usa simply because it was processed here in america. but do consumers really want this much information? >> i think consumers want affordable meat. sometimes they want particular information. they want safe meat. they might care about how the animal was raised, if it was done ethically. some people really care about that. some people do care about the origin of the meat. but it's just not a very large group of people. >> reporter: but the meat industry says the move is unnecessary, expensive, and ultimately costly to consumers. >> it would take more beef out of the system is going to cost
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consumers more. not only that, it's probably going to cost american workers jobs. because we will lose production facilities in certain parts of the country because there won't be enough cattle to keep those plants operating. >> the department of agriculture estimates the move will cost the industry between $17 million and $48 million and will create greater transparency for consumers. but don't expect to see the labels outside of the supermarket. restaurants including fast food chains like mcdonald's are still exempt from telling you where your meat was born and raised. now the department of agriculture is reviewing this and it may go into effect by the end of may if they decide they're going to go forward with it. jake, you say we're learning things on this show every day. and i will say to you that today in the grocery store i learned that so much of the meat on the shelves comes from argentina and australia and uruguay and i pretty much always assume the red meat i buy is from nebraska. don't you?
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guess not. >> it seems it will be a short distance i would think. a shorter distance. but then again i didn't know that all the fruit we thought we eat comes from china, also. who knows? interesting report. erin mcpike, thank you. a mysterious strain of bird flu is sickening and killing people in china and the scariest part, they have no idea how these people got sick. that's our buried lead. it's next. arrival. with hertz gold plus rewards, you skip the counters, the lines, and the paperwork. zap. it's our fastest and easiest way to get you into your car. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. [ female announcer ] first kid ♪ oh hey, up here. [ female announcer ] second kid by their second kid, every mom is an expert and more likely to choose luvs. ♪ after thousands of diaper changes, they know what works. luvs lock away wetness better than huggies
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time for our buried lead. there is a new virus that is so far infecting few people but the results are very deadly. a fifth person has died in eastern china from a new strain of bird flu. it's called h 7 n 9.
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14 people have been confirmed to be infected. all in china. frighteningly enough that's all we know about the latest virus that right now has a 36% fatality rate. joining me now is laurie garret a senior fellow for global health at the council on foreign relations. thank you so much for joining us. there's clearly a lot we don't know. why is it so concerning and what do you want to know that we still don't know? >> there are many things i want to know but two big ones. what is the denominator and exactly how are these people getting infected? so the denominator question is whenever you have a brand new outbreak the first people you see are the ones that are the most ill, the ones that are terminal. they show up in hospitals. they're severe cases. what you don't know immediately is, well, okay. those are the severe cases, but how many people are mildly infected or, in fact, infected with no symptoms at all? in 2009 in mexico city we made
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the mistake of thinking that the flu epidemic we were about to experience, the famous swine flu, was, you know, a super killer flu because all of the hospital emergency rooms got filled with the severe cases. then it turned out for every severe case you had 10,000 mild cases and all of a sudden we realized we didn't have as bad a flu as we thought. in this incident we have a small number of very critical cases with a very high percentage of death, about 50%. what we don't know is does that reflect the denominator or, you know, is it less severe than we think? and the second is how did they get infected? now, all signs right at the moment are pointing to pigeons. maybe pigeons are the silent carriers -- harmlessly to the birds of this virus. but we're not sure and nobody has identified a mechanism. how do you get it from the pigeons? how exactly did this happen? >> you mentioned pigeons but also swine flu and on the subject of swine i'm wondering,
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there have been all these reports of hundreds of dead pigs found in the shanghai river around the same time. is there any chance this is related at all to this outbreak? >> well, of course, the authorities say they've tested 34 carcasses of the some 20,000 dead pigs that floated in the wong fu river and those 34 all tested negative. some of the initial genetic analysis of the new h 7 n 9 virus indicates it has mamalian elements in it which is hard to imagine how that could have happened unless the virus passed from birds through the pigs through a mammal species of some sort. the coincidence remains profound and there is a hong kong team that's just arrived in shanghai, top, cracker jack flu experts, and i know this is one of the issues they're going to look at. >> very quickly, how concerned should americans be right now?
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>> well, i don't think america should be on any kind of alert. we're still very early stages in this. what we want to know and i'm sure i can say to the american people that they can be confident of this, is that our federal health authorities are keeping a close watch on the situation in china, trying to be ahead of the game so that if -- if we have a case that turns up in the united states we're ready with the right diagnostics, the right response capacity. >> all right. laurie garrett senior fellow for global health at the council on foreign relations thank you. >> you bet. there is always money in the banana stand. did you get that reference? then you must be as excited as my producers that the show "arrested development" is back. and netflix which is bringing the original content forward is finally telling us when. that's our money lead next. a new property tax cap... and the lowest middle class income tax rate in 60 years... and a billion dollars in tax breaks and incentives.
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[ male announcer ] engine light on? come to meineke now for a free code scan read and you'll say...my money. my choice. my meineke. the money lead." a lot of people don't know the difference between bit coins and monopoly money but soon you might find yourself withdrawing bit coins from an atm just like cash. for those mastering online banking a bit coin is a new kind of virtual coin used to buy and
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sell stuff online. usually it is not a physical commodity but these would let you convert them to cash and vice versa. plans are in the works to bring the first bit coin atms to los angeles and cyprus makes kind of sense since the banks there helped with the bit coin boom. netflix today announced that the brand new season of "arrested development" will debut on may 26. all 15 episodes will be available at once for your binging pleasure. the last time we saw the bluth family was in 2006 when fox canceled the show because of poor ratings but it has developed an iconic status and enough fans have been clamoring for more. hash tag you're it. we asked you to send titles for hillary clinton's new book. 50 shades of pantsuits. likeable enough. put in a bill and all i received was some change. the story of the 2008 primary. pretty good.